


Three Times

by RowanD



Category: Miami Medical
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-17 12:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowanD/pseuds/RowanD
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Six months passed before he saw her cry."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Times

**Author's Note:**

> Major beta thanks -- since they were all insanely busy, but humored me anyway -- to Choraii, Helenhighwater7, and Annienau08.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: "Miami Medical" and all its lovely characters belong to CBS and Jerry Bruckheimer, etc.. I borrow them only with love.

The first time Chris did not see it coming.

A day like any other. An extra tall espresso from Lambala's below his apartment, a cool breeze off the water, and clear skies for his bicycle ride. Banter with Serena in the parking lot, sports talk with Tuck as Chris blew past the front desk. Changing into his scrubs and stuffing his backpack into his locker. Eva appearing beside him.

Snarking and teasing her. Prompting her with his latest bits of gossip on the new girl in radiology. Until he stopped talking long enough to realize Eva wasn't biting. She had not looked directly at him since he arrived.

Eva's head was lowered as she fastened her pager onto the waistband of her scrubs, her hair sliding to shield her eyes. Chris propped his foot on a chair to tighten the laces of his running shoes. He leaned to catch her gaze. And then he saw it.

"Eva?" The playfulness fell from his voice. He could see her absorb the change. Subtle communication was the life or death of their days.

"Hmm?"

"Eva...you...," his hand lifted, hovered near her shoulder for a moment, then fell at his side, "...have you been crying?"

She half-glanced his way for a moment, brushed her hand down the thigh of her scrubs. Her nose wrinkled as she shook her head. "I'm...I'm fine." The words fell on a soft sigh.

"You're fine. Yeah?"

She nodded. "Yeah." The remnants of tears scratched at her voice. "We've got incoming in three," she said.

"Auto vs. Semi."

She rested her hands on her hips and stared at the floor, worried her lower lip with her teeth. Not like Eva to stand still.

"Anything I can do?" he said softly.

She took a beat to register his words, then she turned, pulled up a little straighter. "Tuck's got the rooms prepped, I think we're looking at a potentially severe spine injury on the woman, so if you take the--"

But Chris shook his head. He touched a light hand to Eva's forearm to pull her attention. "No, Eva, I know, we're set on incoming. I got the husband. I meant...anything I can do for you?"

She looked up at him, really looked for the first time in what felt like days but couldn't have been more than twelve hours. She drew a breath, moved as if to speak, but the words faded on her lips. She looked out through the glass doors toward the trauma floor, scratched at the back of her neck. Then she caught him utterly off guard as she reached an arm up around his neck and tucked herself into his arms.

Eva was only with him a moment, barely enough for Chris to close his arms protectively across her back, feel the wave of tension ripple through her muscles as the embrace brought her a fresh rush of tears. Then she pulled back, tugged down the blouse of her scrubs, and combed her fingers through her hair.

He misplaced the ability to speak.

Eva glanced at her pager, drew a deep breath and blinked clear of the last of her tears, exhaled through pursed lips. She was transforming into Dr. Zambrano before his eyes. "Five, four, three, two, one...," she said softly.

And he got it. But he had to speak.

"We'll talk later?" he said, tone all business, meaning so much more.

Eva gave a brusque nod, "Yeah." Then she disappeared through the doors.

"Three, two, one," Chris whispered, and he followed her footsteps.

Thirty-six hours of work. Blood and resuscitation and paperwork and crash carts. In the end, there was no more conversation than, "Get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

Six months passed before he saw her cry.

*****

She disappeared during her break time. Her break was her own, he did not mean to intrude. But Eva was a break room girl. She would eat a snack, go over patient charts. In better weather, she would move outside to the courtyard, to the stairwell landing with the pleasant view. But she was in none of those places.

Chris wandered into the parking lot to see if her car was still in its usual place. It was. And Eva was inside it, hands gripping the steering wheel.

He squinted against the sun, tilted his head until he caught a clear flash of her expression. Crap.

He crossed the parking lot, opened the door of her jeep, and slid into her passenger seat.  
He heard her sharp intake of breath and saw the flex of her fingers on the steering wheel.

"You know, you should probably lock your car," he said. "This is Miami, after all."

Her exhale was half incredulity, half annoyance. "So far it seems I only need to lock out my friends."

"Ouch."

The banter was his chosen approach. But her eyes were wet and her face was tear-streaked and there was no hope of hiding.

Eva closed her eyes, clenched her fingers on the steering wheel, and exhaled. "I'm sorry," she said softly.

Chris propped his elbow on the passenger door and wrapped his fingers around the handle on the roof of her jeep. "This about the kid?" he asked, venturing a sideways glance at his friend.

Eva looked out the side window. "You know me and kids. I never wanted Peds."

"I know," he said simply. The gentleness and understanding bled into his tone, and he saw Eva squirm in her seat, fighting the intimacy.

For a while they were both quiet.

"I've been doing this a long time," Eva said, gaze on her lap. "You'd think I would...stop having days like this."

Chris pushed back a bit in his seat, drummed his fingers on his knee. Eva's car smelled like her shampoo. Or maybe it was just her. "I'm pretty sure, in this job, periodically crying in your car is the iron clad preventative against one day ripping off your clothes and stomping away through reception. This is what you're supposed to do, Eva. It's what we're all supposed to do."

She turned to look at him, then, and he tried his damnedest not to show how the pain in her eyes turned his guts to jelly. "You do this," she said, words thick with derisive sarcasm, despite the hoarseness in her voice.

"No," he deadpanned. And before she could finish her bitter scoff, he finished, "I don't have a car."

She closed her eyes on a failed smile.

"I prefer the little grove of trees behind the dumpster. The one behind parking lot B."

She met his gaze again, didn't say a word.

"You know...my grandmother used to always say...cry it out, never in. My grandmother was a pretty wise lady. Lived a damned long life."

"So...what?"

He shrugged. "So, it's okay. You're doing the right thing. And I'm sorry about the girl. There was nothing else you could have done."

Eva took that in for a moment, then she closed her eyes, stretched her neck to the side and cringed. "We need to get back inside," she said. Her voice was still shaky.

"Believe it or not...nothing much was happening last I checked. Oddly quiet on the floor. They'll page us if something comes up."

To his surprise, Eva nodded and made no move to exit the car.

They sat in silence for a long moment. Eva let her hands fall to her lap. She reached up to brush at her nose with the side of her hand. "Your grandmother, huh?" she asked, voice soft and almost childlike in its vulnerability.

He tried not to let her break his heart. "Yeah. Grandma Mary. Hell of a lady. Kickass almond crescent cookies."

Eva nodded. She was crying again. Chris reached out an open hand and rubbed steady circles on her back. She was small, really. Slender. He could trace the contours of her spine. She sighed softly beneath his touch. All steel and storm when she was on the job, it was easy to forget. Papi's beautiful Melita. Chris's best friend.

"You did good work, today," was all Chris could say.

*****

The lights were still out. The phone was cradled to her ear, half tucked beneath her down comforter. Evan Miami could be cold in the middle of the night, in the dark of winter. She was barely awake. If she had waited until she was thinking straight, she never would have had the nerve to dial.

"Is this okay? I mean...calling you...in the middle of the night?" Her own voice sounded too fragile, too young to be her own.

"Eva...there is no hour, no minute of the day when we are not friends. All right? It's always okay."

The words felt better than she wanted them to. She wanted him to keep talking. To quiet the noise in her head. "I just...wanted to hear a friendly voice," she said softly.

She heard Chris's gentle smile. "Well, you're in luck, then -- I can do that."

They breathed together for a moment. Silence was always comfortable between them. "I had a nightmare," she said.

He took that in for a moment, she could hear the exhale through his nose, almost see the slight tuck to his brow. "You want to tell me about it?"

She closed her eyes, shaded them with her hand against even the thin glow of moonlight. "No. I just want to forget. I don't...I just...need to get my perspective back. It helps to...talk to someone."

"Okay. You want me to come over? I can call a cab, I'll be there in less than 30 minutes. Like a pizza."

She almost laughed. Goddamn Chris and his warped sense of humor. "No. No, no, no. Just...talk to me for a little while."

"Aren't you always telling me to stop yammering and get to work?"

"Tonight, you get to yammer."

"Wow, things _must_ be rough."

She should have laughed that off, let him turn it funny. But she missed a beat, and she knew he felt it. "So, what did you do tonight?" she asked.

He took the role she was asking for. "Oh, my evening was seriously swinging."

"Yeah?"

"Oh, yeah. Hot date with myself and a frozen dinner that tasted almost as good as a delicacy prepared in an Easy-Bake Oven. A good three hours of nineties sitcoms, and to top it off, a rather impressive toilet flood in my hallway bathroom. You really should have been here, Eva. It was the bomb."

"Yikes. Too much information."

"Hey, you asked!"

"Remind me not to."

The banter felt good. She needed normal. She needed...this.

"Want to hear the plot of tonight's 'Home Improvement'?"

"Oh, please. Regale me."

He was halfway through the episode when she lost it.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Eva? Hey..."

_Dammit_. She hated to cry. Hated it. The mere edge of tears made her feel sick. "It's just...there's just...so much carnage and torn flesh and...I walk around the grocery or the shoe store and I look at people and I see every little disaster that could take away everyone's dreams, rip apart families, and...every human being is just...fragile. We build these constructs, get so caught up in long term progress and moving through society's strata and accomplishments, and one renegade bus and it can all be torn away in a moment for a Harvard professor or a homeless drunk. The human body is...precious and so breakable."

She slid down beneath her comforter, off her pillows, into a hollow cave, eyes closed, and phone tucked beneath her. If she couldn't be seen, maybe this night had never happened.

For an excruciating moment, Chris did not speak. His silence hit her like a tangible wave of humiliation. Visions of red water waving over her on a scorching beach. Then his voice came through the phone, steady and strong. "What did I tell you last year?"

Eva stopped, fingers tangled in her hair. She breathed for a moment. Then in a rush her mind swept her back into her Jeep, that long ago afternoon, and before she could think, she said softly, "Cry it out."

She heard the touched surprise in his voice at her quick reply. "Yeah. That's what keeps you sane. So, you go on..." He paused a moment, then, "Cry it out, Eva."

If she had been dry-eyed to start, the tenderness in his voice would have broken her. As it was, she was helpless.

As her tears took her, his voice came like warm breath in her ear, "That's my girl."

She stayed on the phone until she fell asleep.

*****

"Next bird lands in three, we've got two red vans arriving in five. Still finding more injured at the scene, not sure how many more incoming on the horizon."

"All right, Tuck, thank you." All politeness from Proctor, but the report was no doubt old news to him. They always were. "Chris, Serena, I want you waiting in the ambulance bay. Page me if you need extra hands, I'll see who I can wrangle for you. I have our crushed pelvis heading up to surgery now. Eva, if you would meet the incoming on the roof."

Eva nodded and Chris gave a mock salute. "You got it, Boss."

Proctor squinted at him in place of a smile, then walked away.

Serena's shoes squeaked on the polished tile as she spun toward the ambulance bay. Eva passed in front of Chris on her path toward the elevator. His hand moved out to touch feather-light to her forearm. 

She looked up at him, eyebrow lifted.

"You got this?" he asked. His pinky finger caught on hers as he lowered his arm.

Eva's expression softened for a moment; she never stopped surprising him. Her lips curled in the slightest smile. "I got this," she said simply, voice hoarse with traces of a warmth he knew would linger on his skin.

He held her gaze for a beat, then with a smile and a nod, he said, "Let's get to it."

She nodded.

He let her be the first to walk away.

****  
#


End file.
